Interviews

Today we are pleased to present the transcript and video excerpts from our Focus KSA conversation with Jadwa Investment’s Head of Research, Dr. Fahad M. Alturki, who recently wrote “Opening the Tadawul Up To Foreign Investors.”

The idea for this book, “Misadventures,” belongs to the publisher, Helena Cobban of Just World Books. It brings together a collection of my speeches on the Middle East and related matters with some papers that I had written. The new book opens with my views and experiences from the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait, a lengthy paper containing materials that haven’t been seen before. Then it goes to my interpretation of why that war, although it was a military triumph, was not a political success and, in fact, led in time to a second war with Iraq. There are some speeches and papers of interest to those concerned with developments in Saudi Arabia. None have been published before with the exception of my speech about the end of progress without change from earlier this year. The others describe some of the dilemmas facing Saudi domestic and foreign policymakers. The book is, in other words, entirely about the Middle East. It touches heavily on Saudi Arabia and is both a timeless and a chronological examination of the subjects.

The most recent annual gathering of the highest ranking decision makers and policymakers of the six GCC countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — convened at a time of unusual international interest in what was examined most and what transpired. Like all the previous GCC summits dating from the founding one in 1981, which also took place in Abu Dhabi as did this year’s summit, a broad spectrum of issues was covered.